BY LINDSAY BU | With the unusually warm December coming to a close, the 10th Precinct Community Council held its final meeting of 2015 on the evening of Wed., Dec. 30. Only three local residents showed up to the 7 p.m. meeting. Despite this meager attendance, Community Council President Larry O’Neill commenced in a friendly and casual tone, as he introduced the 10th Precinct’s Commanding Officer, Deputy Inspector Michele Irizarry, and thanked everyone for making time for the meeting.
Irizarry began by reviewing some crime numbers from 2015. She stated that, regrettably, the community was going to finish the year with more index crimes than the year prior — an overall 4.3% increase.
According to the crime statistics outlined in the CompStat report (made available online by the NYPD’s CompStat Unit), the 1,012 total crime complaints reported in 2014 went up to 1,056 in 2015. This uptick includes a 4.7% increase in grand larcenies, with 704 reported incidents in 2014 rising to 737 in 2015; a 14.8% increase in robberies, with 88 reported incidents in 2014 rising to 101; and a 57.1% increase in rapes, with 7 reported incidents in 2014 rising to 11.
“Of course that’s an alarming figure when you see that we are up 57 percent in rapes,” Irizarry said. However, she noted that she had also observed a change in the type of rape crimes being reported.
“I actually looked at the rapes for our year to date [2015], and the overwhelming majority of them are not your — I don’t want to say — ‘traditional rape,’ where, you know, someone is accosted by a stranger on the street,” she said.
“It’s more of — ‘I met a guy at a bar, and went back to his hotel or he came back to my apartment, and I woke up and he was gone, and, like, my pants were down, and I think something may have happened.’ Those are the kind of the rapes that we experience here in Chelsea, and I think that’s a result of a lot of the nightlife here, and that’s [the presence of nightlife] not going to change.”
Yet, despite these startling numbers, Irizarry assured the attendees that she and her team have been continuously strategizing ways to improve the safety of the community. In explaining her upcoming plans, she said, “We may tweak some of our deployment, and we’re contemplating adding a foot post along Eighth Avenue, just to see if that has any positive consequences in terms of reducing crime.”
Irizarry also emphasized the success her team has met in the past year, especially at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center and Artichoke Basille’s Pizza (457 W. 17th St., btw. Ninth & 10th Aves.) — two establishments that were the repeated scenes of grand larcenies.
After working closely with the Security Director at the Javits Center and increasing security around Artichoke Basille’s, Irizarry stated that she and her team have been very successful in taking the crime numbers down at both locations.
“Even though we’re finishing the year off, we’ve done a lot of work and there’s a lot more work to be done in 2016. We’re looking forward to the challenges,” Irizarry said. “We’re going to make sure that the citizens of Chelsea are safe, and that our communities are getting the services that we have promised them.”
Before closing the meeting, Irizarry opened the floor to the public and asked if anyone had questions or concerns to be addressed. One resident, who introduced herself as Phyllis from Penn South, explained that it took three years for her neighbors and herself to get a split-phase light installed on the corner of W. 25th St. and Eighth Ave.
“I want to thank the Tenth Precinct for your help in getting the split-phase light,” she said. “But there is an issue with this light, and the issue is that what should be a green direction [signal] for the cars to turn left to go west is like a yellow. What’s also going on at the same time is that there is a bike lane between the turning car, and [the bike lane’s] light is still green. So we’ve been told by a couple of people driving at one mile an hour and making this turn, and a bike shooting out. This is an accident waiting to happen,” Phyllis said.
Irizarry then assured her that there would be a solution to this issue, perhaps by working out the wiring of the lights. “This is a problem that the DOT [Department of Transportation] needs to fix, and it seems to be an easy fix, once we give them a phone call,” she said.
Lt. Peter Benekas, who stood near Irizarry, also stated that he would look into the light the next day.
At the conclusion of the meeting, O’Neill reminded everyone that the next meeting — the first of 2016 — would be held at the 10th Precinct station, on Jan. 27, at 7 p.m.
“Bring your friends, please,” he emphasized. “This is your opportunity to be heard, and we look forward to having more people. That being said, it’s been a pleasure working with everyone, and seeing everyone at the end of every month,” Irizarry said.
The 10th Precinct is located at 230 W. 20th St. (btw. Seventh & Eighth Aves.). Main number: 212-741-8211. Community Affairs: 212-741-8226. Crime Prevention: 212-741-8226. Domestic Violence: 212-741-8216. Youth Officer: 212-741-8211. Auxiliary Coordinator: 212-741-8210. Detective Squad: 212-741-8245. The Community Council meeting, open to the public, takes place at 7 p.m. on the last Wed. of the month.
